Sports Writer for The Age

FOOTBALLERS' position as employees of clubs needed to be considered by the sports codes and anti-doping authorities in the event that any player took a banned substance given to them by a coach, AFL Players Association boss Matt Finnis said.

Finnis and representatives of other codes' player bodies met federal Sports Minister Kate Lundy, the Australian Crime Commission and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority on Thursday to be briefed on the recent revelations regarding the prevalence of performance-enhancing drugs, potential for match-fixing, corruption and crime links in Australian sports.

Finnis said he had accepted the principle that athletes were responsible for any substances put in their bodies, but he also questioned where that policy sat with athlete employment contracts and occasions in which athletes were following the directions of their employer.

He stressed he was not talking specifically about the issues presently confronting the Essendon football club.

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''Certainly we understand, and our members understand, that personal responsibility cannot be abrogated, but its absolutely fundamental to public confidence in the code and the code's confidence that

there be recognition of the degrees of culpability, particularly in an employment context which is different to many other sporting organisations,'' Finnis said.

Much of the anti-doping code has been crafted with individual sports and the Olympic cycle in mind and had taken less account of club-based professional sports. Finnis said in a sport such as tennis the athlete employs the coach, which alters the relationship, compared to the AFL, for instance, where the player is employed by the club.

''Athletes in this [AFL] context are bound by the decisions of people in authority,'' he said.